Posted on 10/14/2004 1:46:01 PM PDT by ecurbh
TACOMA, Wash. -- An oil spill stained Tacoma's Commencement Bay on Thursday, and state Department of Ecology investigators said they did not immediately know the source or extent.
Spill responders from the department the U.S. Coast Guard were sent to Dalco Passage, between the south end of Vashon Island and Tacoma's Point Defiance, after someone on a tug boat reported thick black oil about 1 a.m. in the water, Ecology spokeswoman Mary Ellen Voss said.
The initial report indicated the spill was about an acre in size, but television news footage from a helicopter showed an oily sheen spreading over a much larger area.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattlepi.nwsource.com ...
Well, that would make too much sense. I mean, this is the environmentalist capital of the world it seems some days. You'd think they'd be on top of that, ya know?
You Do know I was kidding, right? ;0)
State Department of Ecology investigators said they did not immediately know the source or type of oil that spilled or how far it had spread.
Spills responders from the department and the U.S. Coast Guard were sent to Dalco Passage, between the south end of Vashon Island and Tacoma's Point Defiance, after someone on a tug boat reported thick black oil in the water, Ecology spokeswoman Mary Ellen Voss said.
The initial report, phoned in around 1 a.m., indicated the spill was about an acre in size, but television news footage shot from a helicopter at midday showed an oily sheen spreading over a much larger area.
"We're calling it the 'Dalco Passage Mystery Spill' because we don't know how big it is, where it came from or where it's headed,'' Voss said.
Ecology officials said it took several hours for thick morning fog to clear enough for spill responders to get out on the water and into the air to investigate.
"This is really bad. And unfortunately because of the fog and slow reaction, a lot of the oil has already hit the beaches on Vashon and Maury islands,'' Kathy Fletcher, executive director of the community environmental group People for Puget Sound, said early Thursday afternoon.
"Apparently, it's not big, black globules, but people have observed birds in the oil,'' Fletcher said.
Cleanup operations began with boats plying the spill area to skim oil from the surface, Ecology spokesman Larry Altose said.
The Coast Guard said two contractors hired to handle the cleanup would also be using protective booms in some areas
I am in personal event overload. In the midst of this story, which I am VERY interested and worried about (we have a beach house very nearby in Hales Passage), we have been trying to figure out why every vehicle in the county with a siren has been driving by and it turns out there has been a fatal car accident on the road outside my house.
I long for a quiet simple life.
Don't look up, but I think I see a meteor heading your way...
I am not accepting any new crises at this time. Please call back later ;~D
I played fetch the rock with a beluga whale all afternoon at Point Defiance zoo last time I was up there. Apparently, we were mutually easily amused.
It's W's fault.
Though it doesn't take but a drop of diesel to create a sheen the size of a piece of plywood, that looks pretty big. Either someone sunk or the the bilge float tripped on a freighter as it was sliding through. I'd be interested to know more about it's consistency, that'll help 'em narrow it down. Everything big (I think it's 85'+) is tracked troughout the sound, shouldn't take long before we know.
Hold yourself together Kathy!
Oil spill near Tacoma?...
Probably clean the place up a bit.
Yes, this was one small part of the worst work day of my entire life...
Did they ever figure out where it came from?
I just saw some footage on the news finally, and they showed some fairly thick black goo washing up on the beach on Vashon.
Looks like Bunker C to me. Probably from a bilge of a cargo ship. There isn't going to be anything else in the area that would have that stuff. I don't think the ferries burn that, they're probably diesel.
The report said that the CG had already analyzed the samples from the spill, and they'll be locating any recent ships and sampling the bilges. It shouldn't take long to find the place it came from.
The rest of the story was really, really silly. Apparently the only dead thing they could find was a jellyfish that washed up covered with oil. A jellyfish? c'mon...
Since it's my job to keep the lid on and calm the excited, and clean up the emotional mess, you can imagine my chagrine.
Roger that... having watched KOMO/KING/KIRO for years, I've ceased being amazed by stoopidreporters. Anything to create panic.
They ended the report by worrying about worrying about the threat this poses to the octopus in the narrows.
Apparently they didn't get the memo about how oil "floats". Sure it will be a mess and will be a problem for birds and other sea surface critters-- but octopus ain't one of 'em. If you're gonna worry about worrying about something... talk about birds and seals... fercryinoutloud.
and jellyfish... yeesh.
Hey now... Some of us like it here....
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